


une affaire familiale

by mybelovedcheshire



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Gen, M/M, hospital visits, idk i was just trying to be scary and then this whole thing got away from me, just courfeyrac, kicking and punching of kittens, modern!AU, not an animal kitten
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-11
Updated: 2013-02-11
Packaged: 2017-11-28 22:43:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/679691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mybelovedcheshire/pseuds/mybelovedcheshire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Courfeyrac stumbles on Montparnasse at Eponine's place, and becomes a battered pawn in a very dangerous war between them. But Montparnasse doesn't realise that Eponine is not on her own in the fight -- she has the full support of all the Amis de l'ABC, even if she doesn't realise it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Hey little Eponine,” the man called out in a macabre serenade, leaning into the door. “Come on out, I know you’re in there.” He dragged his fingers down the peeling paint, tearing some of the blue away to show a dirty, discoloured, almost bone-like white underneath. 

Eponine didn’t answer. If she was at home, she knew better. If she wasn’t, she was very lucky. 

Montparnasse straightened up in a languid, feline way. His dark eyes narrowed. 

“Don’t play this game today, little Eponine,” he said to her door. His voice had noticeably lost a bit of its lyrical sweetness that time. 

There was a sharp kind of tension in the way he rolled his shoulders forward. Like he wanted to physically break the door down, but knew he didn’t have the strength. He could climb the fire escape and sneak in through her window. He could fish out a card that wasn’t his and force the lock. He could break the handle off — but that was noisy. 

He wanted to burn it to the ground, and the girl inside with it — but that would take too long. 

So he pouted in a bitterly child-like way, his dark hair falling into his eyes as he glowered. It was the kind of expression that led so many to mischaracterise him as just another youth on the street. Just another boy playing at being a con — robbing old ladies of purses and snatching wallets out of pockets. Just another urchin waiting for his stint in jail that would lead to his metamorphosis as an actual criminal.

They rarely understood at first sight that Montparnasse was anything but ‘just another’. 

He might have been a nineteen year old in a fitted, black jacket. He might have been a bit too intoxicated at that moment to be sensible about getting Eponine’s attention. He might have even been deemed ‘bratty’ by those who knew him. 

But in the last three years he’d definitely slit more than enough throats to have earned that cold, empty look in his eyes. 

It was a look Courfeyrac wished he’d never had the misfortune of seeing as he rounded the corner to Eponine’s place. 

Montparnasse’s head turned in a slow, predatory roll in Courfeyrac’s direction. Courfeyrac froze. Even under the shadow of an angled fedora, he could feel the lack of mercy in the void that stared back at him.

It would have been smarter to run, but he didn’t. 

“Here little kitten,” Montparnasse murmured. He clicked his tongue. 

Courfeyrac tried to swallow back the sudden, cold fear lodged in his throat. “What are you doing here?” He asked, utterly failing at sounding brave and coming off as more of a petulant, accusatory child. It was not the tone to take with Montparnasse. He was familiar with him through Eponine, and he was too aware that a dark alley as the sun was setting was the last place anyone ever wanted to be with that man. 

And in his head, he started to silently shriek because that’s exactly where he was. He’d only come to pick up something for Eponine. She’d even given him a key, which Courfeyrac clutched tightly in his hand. She’d told him that the best way to get in was really through the fire escape — it wasn’t easy, but just in case the landlord had changed the locks on the doors or something. 

They did that from time to time — especially to people who didn’t really believe in paying rent. 

Montparnasse slid his hands into his pockets. Unlike Courfeyrac, he had no keys in there — just a long, thin piece of wire and a bit of money. He didn’t answer; he only clicked his tongue.

Courfeyrac took a step back. 

Montparnasse laughed. 

The sound left a nauseous little lump in Courfeyrac’s stomach. 

“Sorry,” he muttered, more as an automatic response than because he felt genuine contrition. He felt sorry for himself if anything, that he’d come there — that he’d seen that man with the too-dark eyes and the unpleasant voice. 

Courfeyrac turned around to bolt back out on the street. 

But he’d hardly lifted his foot off the ground when a hand grabbed him by the collar of his coat and ruthlessly yanked him back. 

That was when he actually screamed. 

Montparnasse slammed his hand down over Courfeyrac’s mouth, bruising his lips with the heel of his palm as they were crushed against Courfeyrac’s teeth. Courfeyrac whimpered and winced as his head connected painfully with Eponine’s door. 

Montparnasse roughly pinned him against it, obscuring everything beyond that little niche from view like a dense, dark shadow. 

Courfeyrac struggled. He trembled, and he shook, but he kicked and fought as hard as he could against that a body that resisted his every effort. It was like being held down by thick sap — no matter how he moved, no matter how much he thought he gained, Montparnasse filled in the empty gaps. 

It didn’t take long for him to start panting. 

It was that moment that he realised just how much trouble he was actually in. Montparnasse felt the laboured rush of air wash over his skin, and cocked his head to the side. There was so much satisfaction in that feeling — in the obvious terror. But there were ways to make it better. 

He twisted his hand without pulling it away, pinching Courfeyrac’s nose tightly between his fingers. The smaller man couldn’t breathe at all — and he whined like a horror-stricken dog, his eyes involuntarily welling up with tears as he tried desperately to get even the smallest amount of air into his lungs. 

Montparnasse didn’t budge. 

He rested his face next to Courfeyrac’s and whispered: “Good little kitten,” in his ear.

Courfeyrac could taste bile at the back of his mouth. 

But that feeling vanished as his eyes fluttered shut. His arms gave out — he’d been pushing relentlessly at Montparnasse’s chest from the start. His lungs ached, and a cottony, foggy cloud surrounded his brain. A blurry yellow ribbon danced in the black that swallowed him up. 

Before he could pass out, Montparnasse dragged his hand away — Courfeyrac immediately gasped, his eyes flying open — and drove his fist into Courfeyrac’s stomach. There was no air in Courfeyrac’s chest — he couldn’t cry out. He could only crumple forward, completely at the mercy of those soft, violent hands. 

Montparnasse hit him again, and again. 

And a very large part of Courfeyrac wanted to give in and sob. Tears leaked down either side of his face, but it was just his body’s reaction to nearly being suffocated — not his emotional response to being brutally attacked. He wouldn’t give the asshole that.

He wouldn’t ever give anyone that.

All he could do was drag down lungful after lungful of increasingly bloody air as Montparnasse held him down and pummelled him.

There was a break — one moment where the other man stopped, and softly asked: “You’re one of those little cunts that keeps our Eponine away, aren’t you?” That sleazy, poetic tone was back, and Courfeyrac desperately tried to will himself to vomit all over Montparnasse and his stupid coat, but his body wouldn’t cooperate. 

“I know you are,” Montparnasse continued, grabbing Courfeyrac by the jaw and pinching his cheeks together. “I’ve seen you out with her.”

Courfeyrac didn’t reply. With blood dripping down the back of his throat, he had slightly more pressing concerns on his mind than trying to converse with someone who was clearly a fucking psychopath. 

“You and that little blond thing.”

A shudder ran down Courfeyrac’s spine. 

A sick but delighted smile cut across the shadows on Montparnasse’s face. “He’s a right little prize. Wouldn’t mind passing him around a prison for the extra quid.”

Courfeyrac’s stomach turned inside out. 

“Here’s a message for our little Eponine,” Montparnasse told him, his face inches away from Courfeyrac’s again. “She stops playing with her kittens, or we start sending her their tails.” His grip tightened on Courfeyrac’s face. “Might gift wrap it, if I’m feeling generous.”

And for all of five seconds, Courfeyrac thought he might actually get out of that horrible place with his body in one piece. Montparnasse stepped back and Courfeyrac slid down the length of Eponine’s door, taking paint chips with him the whole way. 

But that would have been merciful — and if there was one thing Montparnasse could never be, that was it. 

He grinned as he pulled his foot back. Courfeyrac closed his eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

Eponine found Courfeyrac several hours later with his bloody nose tucked right against the space under her door. He’d been crying — he hadn’t let it happen until it was all over, and he was positive that Montparnasse wasn’t coming back for more, but once he was, he’d nestled his face against the little gap and sobbed until he passed out. 

He’d have held off if he could have, but there was really only so much thrashing he could take. 

And he had been thrashed mercilessly. 

Eponine dropped to her knees next to him — she hadn’t recognised him at first. She’d assumed it was some homeless lump trying to shelter between the dumpster and her door, but her heart leapt into throat as she realised not many homeless people in her area wore suspenders.

Or bowties. 

Or mismatched socks.

“Oh my god,” she murmured, reaching out to delicately brush his hair away from his face. “Courf? Courfeyrac?”

Courfeyrac whined quietly. 

A dozen things went through her mind all at once. She needed to get him to a hospital. She needed to make sure he wasn’t going to die in the next five minutes. She had to tell Jehan, and Enjolras, and Combeferre — she had to tell everyone, but first, she had to get him medical help. 

And then she had to find out what the hell had happened. 

She phoned in their location, and sent a pre-emptive text to Enjolras telling him everything she knew. Courfeyrac wasn’t talking — he might not have been able to, judging the blood around his mouth. He was freezing. Whatever bastard had mugged him — she assumed he’d been mugged, because they’d taken his wallet, his phone, his shoes, and his coat — obviously hadn’t given a fuck if he’d lived or died at that point. 

She wanted to ring Jehan, but she knew she should leave it to Enjolras. He was a leader. He was ace in a crisis, and this was a crisis the likes of which they had never actually encountered before. Bahorel and Grantaire showed up with their faces bloodied constantly — but they were used to it. They were fighters, they enjoyed getting injured.

Only the worst kind of person could have done that to Courfeyrac. 

She clung to his hand as the ambulance ferried them to the nearest hospital. 

Enjolras would take care of the others. He would have called Combeferre immediately, and then gone to get Jehan himself. Combe would call Joly, and Feuilly, and if the others weren’t with them, they’d find out within minutes. It was an effective system that almost brought a smile to Eponine’s lips, even in the direness of that moment. 

Her boys were remarkable. 

And while she was upset for Courfeyrac, she wasn’t afraid. He would pull through this because they would make him pull through. Because his friends needed him. Because they loved him. 

God have mercy on whoever was responsible, because they certainly wouldn’t. 

She leaned closer to Courfeyrac and brushed her free hand through his hair again. He’d been given an oxygen mask and strapped into the gurney so he couldn’t look anywhere but directly up, but she saw his eyes jerk to the left just slightly, searching for her. 

“You’re going to be fine,” she reassured him. “I promise.”

She waited until the EMTs were rushing Courfeyrac into the hospital to write out a quick text, which she sent to Courfeyrac’s phone.

We will find you.

Enjolras and Jehan stormed the main doors of the hospital like a two-man mob on Bastille Day. They were unstoppable — two classical gods who would not accept anything short of complete cooperation as they hunted down Eponine. One attendant had tried to cite policy — family only beyond this point — but a single look from Jehan had her stepping aside before she even realised what she was doing. 

Eponine was waiting by the doors to the operating room when they found her. She had curled up in a chair with her knees pulled up to her chin and her phone in her hands, rapidly relaying text after text to Combeferre, Grantaire, and Bossuet. She’d even managed to get one out to Cosette before another deluge of questions came flooding through. 

She leapt up when she saw them — and only barely managed to grab Jehan by the arm of his sweater before he could bolt through the doors. “He’s fine!” she insisted. “He will be fine. Jehan—” Enjolras grabbed the frenzied poet around the waist and pulled him back, holding him firmly until Jehan’s nostrils had stopped flaring, and he’d lost a little of the cold glower that made them almost seem related. 

His hair was a mess. It had fallen out of its usual, neat braid and seemed wild. There was a reason only one person had actually had the gall to try and stop them.

Eponine — ever fearless, even when faced with angry gods — clutched Jehan’s hands. “He has two broken ribs,” she hastily explained. “But he’s going to be fine — just bruised. No,” she added, seeing the question in Enjolras’s fiery eyes, “we still don’t know what happened. I think he was mugged, but we’ll have to ask him when they’re done.”

Jehan didn’t say anything. Enjolras nodded. 

The rest of the Amis piled into the room less than ten minutes later. 

Jehan kept silent. He’d retreated inside his jumper essentially, pulling it over his knees as he perched on the arm of the chair that Eponine had vacated. He looked a little bit like a startlingly beautiful gargoyle, just waiting there with a stony expression. Eponine stood beside him with one hand on his shoulder, while Feuilly fixed his hair. 

Enjolras and Combeferre sat side by side on a couch just opposite them with their eyes locked on the doors to the operating room. 

Only Bossuet, who had threaded his fingers together with Joly’s and not let go since they’d received Combeferre’s first message, Grantaire, and Bahorel were whispering conspiratorially together in the far corner. Joly was a part of their exchange by default, but his thoughts were elsewhere. 

Some time later a nurse pushed the door open. Jehan was standing in front of him instantly, his eyes focused on the man’s face in such a severe, unyielding way that the nurse seemed to briefly forget exactly what it was he’d come to say. 

He cleared his throat, and explained as professionally as he could — not easy with nine, very intense people circling around him — that their friend was just fine. He’d been patched up, and had been taken to a room on the floor just above to rest and recover. 

He tried in vain to re-emphasize the word ‘rest’ as all nine of them went tearing for the stairs. ‘No running in the hospital’ hadn’t even crossed his mind.


	3. Chapter 3

Jehan was the first into Courfeyrac’s room. He sprinted straight up to the bed and all but melted against the rails as Eponine and Enjolras formed a human barricade in the doorway when they tried to run through it at the same time. Bahorel shoved them both through, and before long, everyone was inside and circling around Courfeyrac. 

Combeferre had generously closed the door behind them after explaining to the attendants that they were, in fact, all family, and that regrettably any attempt to remove them would be met with extreme resistance. Having seen the determined look in Jehan’s eyes, the attendants took him at his word, and left the group well alone. 

In bed, Courfeyrac looked like he’d been mauled by a wild animal, despite the fact that he’d been washed up and stitched back together. There was nothing the doctors could physically do for his fractured ribs except give him a significant amount of pain medication, which had kicked in over an hour ago, and left a dopey smile on Courf’s face. 

“I can’t feel my tongue,” he told them cheerfully — even though he was referring to his nose, which he kept poking with his index finger. 

Without anyone noticing, Jehan had slithered over the rail of the bed and tucked himself against Courfeyrac’s undamaged side. One hand wrapped possessively around the front of Courfeyrac’s hospital gown, and the rest of him nestled into Courfeyrac’s body like they were one anecdotic statue rather than two separate beings. Courfeyrac tried to put his arm around Jehan — but his basic motor skills had been temporarily limited to pokes and moving his swollen lips. 

It was Bahorel’s voice that broke above the group and asked: “What the fuck happened?”

A surge of sobriety seemed to wash over Courfeyrac’s face. 

There were things he didn’t want to tell them. There were words that Montparnasse had said to him that made his stomach seize up even now, and comments he hoped to take to his grave if only to spare his friends.

But there was no way he could explain without telling them what that rude son of a bitch had said about Eponine. 

In all honesty, there was no way he could explain anything right then, because his throat was raw, even if he couldn’t feel it. He took a deep, dizzying breath, had a sip of water with Joly’s help, and rasped: “It’s complicated, but…” He paused, because he wanted to emphasise the fact that there was a much longer story that they would eventually hear, and then slowly added: “Montparnasse.”

Everyone went eerily quiet. 

Eponine looked like she was going to be ill. Her expression didn’t settle — it went from fury, to concern, to stony indifference (which was just another mask, and not in the least bit indicative of how she really felt), to rage again. It settled on a half-aware smile — the face she always used when she wished very much that she wasn’t there. 

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. 

Grantaire reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. Absolutely no one thought it was her fault. Some of them had met Montparnasse — the rest knew him, and the other members of the Patron Minette gang by rough description. They weren’t exactly decent people, much less inclined to making logical decisions. 

Courfeyrac made a dismissive noise, but couldn’t offer much else. 

He’d been told by his doctors that he needed to take a deep breath at least once every ten minutes — a command seconded by both Joly and Combeferre — but it wasn’t as easy as it should have been. He could breathe in without much effort, but once he’d done it, he would forget that it was something he had to keep doing. After a few minutes, his chest felt heavy, and his mouth felt cold, and spots swam in front of his eyes. 

Jehan tucked his chin over Courfeyrac’s shoulder. His lips parted and he lightly breathed out against Courfeyrac’s neck. Courfeyrac shivered, and inhaled when Jehan did. They stayed in tandem as they breathed out again — and after a few minutes had adopted an easy, synchronised rhythm that suited them both. Courfeyrac briefly felt the urge to cry again — but it had nothing to do with his predicament and everything to do with the perfection of Jean Prouvaire. 

But while he and Jehan were finding balance in each other, Bahorel restlessly tapped his foot on the floor. He wasn’t the only one — Feuilly fed off his frustration, and Grantaire looked like he’d be just as happy reassuringly hugging Eponine as he would if he punched the wall. 

“You’ll be alright,” Combeferre told Courfeyrac. There was never any doubt that he wouldn’t be, but Combeferre wasn’t speaking for Courfeyrac’s benefit. His soothing voice was directed at the others — at the tension in the room that hung over them so thickly, they could almost hear it humming. No one had noticed, but Combeferre had actually laid his hand in the middle of Enjolras’s back — a small, but firm gesture of caution. 

But if anyone had asked him directly, he would have admitted that he was as livid as the rest of them. 

Bahorel rarely responded well to the idea of restraint. He folded his arms across his chest. 

“So, where can we find him?” He asked bluntly.

Eponine turned around immediately. “No.”

Bahorel looked over her head at Enjolras whose eyes were dark and contemplative. Eponine hissed. 

“You cannot touch him,” she insisted. 

On the bed, Courfeyrac huffed quietly like he was trying to protest, but didn’t have the voice for it. Jehan pressed his lips to Courfeyrac’s jaw and whispered in his ear too softly for the others to hear. 

“He’ll kill you,” Eponine said bluntly. “No matter what you do to him, he will find you. And he will kill you.”

“He’s a kid,” Bahorel retorted. He’d never taken Montparnasse seriously, and it wasn’t likely he was going to start any time soon.

“A kid who has committed murder!” She hissed angrily. 

Feuilly stood just behind Bahorel. Like Combeferre, he had the power to be a voice of reason — but righteousness and reason were rapidly showing themselves to be on the same side. “He hurt Courfeyrac,” he reminded her. 

“And he’ll hurt the rest of you! For fuck’s sake— ”

If she expected support from the rest of the Amis, she wasn’t getting it. Joly was making a checklist of Courfeyrac’s injuries so he could look after them once he was released from the hospital. Bossuet had bowed his head. Despite their exceptionally good humour, even they didn’t think Montparnasse should get away with what he’d done. 

Courfeyrac made an angry little noise to get their attention. 

“You don’t understand,” he told them, even though his voice broke. Everyone looked at him, except for Jehan, who had closed his eyes. 

“It’s not—” He whined, because even at the best of times, he wasn’t the speech-giver. Finding the right words — the words that would cause the least damage, but still explain — was a struggle. “This isn’t about me,” he said. 

Enjolras raised his hand calmly, silencing Bahorel before he could retort that those were, in fact, his ribs that were fractured. “What happened?” He asked. There was a distinct feeling of ‘on your own time’ coming from him that conflicted with the restlessness in the room. 

Courfeyrac told them, and he told them everything.

He told them how he’d stumbled across Montparnasse at Eponine’s door, how he’d been choked, and how he’d been punched. He relayed the exact message, and the context — and that Montparnasse had been drunk, or he might not have gotten away as unscathed as he had. Bahorel smiled at that. He struggled with Montparnasse’s comment about Jehan, in part because no one needed to hear that, and because he couldn’t bring himself to physically say those words. He would have preferred to cut out his own tongue, honestly — but he did mention after a slight pause that Montparnasse had made very blunt threats against them individually. 

Jehan’s eyes fluttered open. His face was so close to Courfeyrac’s skin that Courfeyrac could feel Jehan’s long eyelashes brush against his neck.

Eponine had leaned against the wall and stiffly wrapped her arms around herself. “I’ll take care of him,” she answered quietly. Now that she understood, she was even less willing to let the Amis get any more caught up in her fight than they already had. 

She felt like shit because of what happened to Courfeyrac. She wasn’t going to let the situation get worse. 

But Courfeyrac wasn’t having any of it. He stubbornly lifted his chin a fraction of an inch, which was comical, considering he was bedridden, but even that didn’t dampen the defiance in his expression. 

It had become his battle. He wanted to fight it.

And so did Bahorel, and Feuilly, and Grantaire, and Bossuet — and even Combeferre and Joly, in their own way. 

The glint in Enjolras’s eyes suggested that he had already made his decision, and he wasn’t in the habit of changing his mind. “Eponine,” he began.

“No,” she replied flatly, again. “There is nothing you can do about this.”

Bahorel cracked his knuckles. Eponine gritted her teeth. 

Enjolras continued. “We’re not going to let this stand.”

“So, what? You’ll pummel him a bit and hope he gets the message? That’s not justice—” Bahorel grunted, but Combeferre seemed to smile. “I’m responsible for this, and I’ll take care of it.”

Enjolras didn’t answer at first. The others stepped back as he walked around the length of Courfeyrac’s bed and stopped in front of her. She straightened up, resolute in her decision to protect them from potentially making corpses of themselves. 

Combeferre had told the hospital attendants that they were all family. 

Montparnasse had called them Eponine’s kittens. 

The only person who didn’t seem to understand that Eponine was one of them was Eponine herself. 

Enjolras met her eyes and explained. “Montparnasse has committed a crime, and he must answer for it. He’s a man outside of the law, and if the law can’t give retribution— then we will. If we have to wait,” he spoke over his shoulder to Bahorel, “—we will, but he will not—”

Eponine tried to talk over him. “There’s nothing any of you can do—”

“—get away with threatening any one of us,” Enjolras continued. “Any of us, Eponine. Including you.”

It was a family affair now. There was an overwhelming feeling of commitment in the room. 

Courfeyrac squeezed Jehan’s hand, suddenly aware of how cold his little poet seemed.


	4. Chapter 4

Only the most cliché kind of gangster would hang out by the river.

And as a pitifully cliché gangster who frequently needed to dispose of a body, Montparnasse spent quite an unhealthy amount of time on the banks of the Seine. With his hands in his pockets and a smirk on his lips, he felt rather proud of himself. 

That text from Eponine had been a joke for the other members of the Patron Minette. He’d written back: “See you soon, little girl,” and laughed at the way her mouth would have curled in anger -- as if she was even slightly scary. 

Vindictive and bitchy, maybe -- but not scary. 

Nothing scared him. 

Jean Prouvaire carefully followed a disused, pebbled path down to the water’s edge at sundown. He hadn’t told anyone where he was going. Eponine was distracted by Courfeyrac, and the others were still arguing about what they should do. 

That they should do something had never actually been an issue -- it was the what that had become a problem.

Jehan had an answer. And if he was honest, he’d had it from the moment Enjolras had knocked on his door two days ago, because no one -- absolutely no one -- would get away with hurting his Courfeyrac. 

It was quite the scene from Montparnasse’s point of view -- an angelic little thing with braided hair, winding her way down to his favourite haunt, seemingly without a care in the world. His lips curled in feline satisfaction. He could already picture the dark bruises blossoming across her sweet face like flowers. He could smell the blood that would trickle across her silky skin like winding, red rivers. 

Because cats, of course, delighted in death, and he was every inch that shady kind of creature that haunted the city at night. 

With a truly criminal thrill, he visualised the roll of money he could get if he introduced her to the right people. 

Jehan walked up to him without hesitation or fear -- and that was when Montparnasse realised just who he’d been watching. 

He laughed. 

Jehan didn’t blink. 

Montparnasse’s smile faltered just a fraction of an inch. 

“You’re one of them--”

“My name is Jean Prouvaire,” Jehan interrupted. His voice stayed quiet, but Montparnasse had no difficulty hearing him. 

“You--”

Jehan’s eyes seemed to narrow. Montparnasse shut his mouth, and silently wondered why that expression seemed to familiar. 

“Two days ago you attacked a man named Courfeyrac. You did it because you thought you could use him to bully a woman named Eponine into crawling back to you. You were wrong.”

Montparnasse almost laughed. 

“Eponine does not crawl for anyone. Not for us, and not for you. Courfeyrac doesn’t break just because you fractured his ribs.”

Laughing suddenly didn’t seem like quite the right response anymore. 

“And nothing that you do,” Jehan continued. “Can scare me.”

There was a fierce glow in Jehan’s eyes -- a kind of wrathful fire that Montparnasse, who spent his nights crawling around sewers and shadowed alleys with dark-eyed, empty people, rarely saw. But now he did remember it. He’d seen it twice before -- from Eponine, who had never really been one of their sinister kind. 

And from the leader of that little pack of brats she was so fond of.

Montparnasse had never said anything to anyone -- he wouldn’t have dared -- but he didn’t like that look. He didn’t like that blond man, and if he’d had the option, he’d have rather steered bloody well clear of him. 

There was too much anger there. 

But at least that one, whatever his name was, looked like a fighter. He was tall, and impressive, and nicely dressed -- Montparnasse sneered at the mental image -- and fierce, and reeked of that lily-white purity that Montparnasse purged from himself. 

This little brat had none of that. He looked like he’d fallen into some six year old’s cupboard and come out as more of a doll than a person. He was all girlish and small, and flowery. 

And unyielding. 

The nurses at the hospital had seen it, and now Montparnasse did too. 

His smile faltered altogether, and he slipped his hand into his pocket. 

Jean Prouvaire didn’t look down. 

The sun had set. The river still glittered with a warm, amber light but the cold of winter encased them like the still, lifeless grip of a sepulchre. The day and the domain of men like that little, blond-haired child was giving way to a world that should have belonged to Montparnasse and his people. 

But the fire in Jehan’s eyes hadn’t gone out -- and the longer Montparnasse stared, the more he realised that it wasn’t like the light that burned in their foremost golden boy. Jehan, in complete contradiction to his outward appearance, didn’t seem any less in his element as the dark melancholy of night settled in. 

Montparnasse didn’t like it. 

“Your mistake,” Jehan continued in the same, soft tone that he’d started with, “was that you think you’re more frightening than we are.”

Montparnasse wrapped his hand around the wire in his pocket. 

“You hurt people. And sometimes you kill people. But you’re no different from your victims, because you, Montparnasse, are just as afraid of dying as they were.”

The last remnants of light had vanished from the river, and the sky had darkened overhead, so that Jehan’s eerily pale skin seemed ghostlike by comparison. Montparnasse said nothing. He could feel his head beating just a little bit faster than it had been ten minutes ago. 

Jehan had paused briefly. He was staring at the shadow under the brim of Montparnasse’s hat, and wanted to be sure that the severity and blunt honesty of what he was about to say would hit home. 

“I am not.”

Montparnasse swallowed down the saliva that had pooled uncomfortably at the back of his throat.

“And neither are my friends.”

As the last word slipped out of his mouth, both Jehan and Montparnasse caught the sound of a dull shout some distance behind them. Montparnasse curled in on himself, like a cat on the verge of pouncing -- or running away -- but Jehan only rolled his eyes. 

He could recognise that loud, obnoxious voice anywhere -- and the completely unsubtle approach of the group running down the street in their direction was a dead give-away. The newcomers obviously weren’t Montparnasse’s people. 

“Relax,” Jehan told the agitated criminal, with no lack of disdain. Montparnasse took a step back as Enjolras and Bahorel came into view over the crest of the riverbank. “They’re not coming to hurt you.” 

Enjolras actually caught Bahorel across the chest with one arm and stopped there, watching them from a distance. Feuilly, Bossuet, and Combeferre nearly ploughed into them. 

“I imagine they’re actually here to protect you,” Jehan explained with a hint of a smile. “They do that. The big one does want to take your teeth out one by one with a hammer, but that’s not justice. Frankly, I want to kill you myself, but that would be too easy.”

“You’re going to run way,” Jehan said. “You’re going to go crawl into whatever naive, little hole you came out of, knowing that you are nothing but a powerless child. Your only weapon was fear, and it has no effect on any of us.” His smile widened. “But you probably realised that when you started kicking Courfeyrac.”

Jehan looked away at last, turning to march back up the pebble pathway to where his friends waited. Montparnasse stayed rooted to the spot, with his eyes hidden under the brim of his hat, and his sweating, shaking hands tucked into his pockets.


End file.
